[Wolves] Email help

[David Goodwin]

Jono Bacon wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
>>If you have an IMAP server (e.g. cyrus or uw-imap),
>>your mail transfer 
>>agent (e.g. sendmail or postfix) can then receive
>>the "fetchmail"ed 
>>mail, and store it on the IMAP server.
>>
>>Using IMAP you can connect to it through a variety
>>of methods - e.g. 
>>SquirrelMail, Horde (both webmail interfaces) or
>>through things like 
>>Mozilla, Evolution, Outlook etc.
> 
> 
> So how does IMAP fit into this? I get my mail from my
> ISP with fetchmail, but how do I store this in the
> IMAP server?
> 
> I am assuming that the IMAP server just stores mail in
> a particular format.
> 


IMAP's good because it stores all your mail on a server, so any client 
can use it - as opposed to the pop3 approach where you download mail 
from the server into the mail client.... this mail is then unavailable 
to other email applications.

Fetchmail will download your mail from your ISP.

Fetchmail will then pass the email to your MTA (e.g. sendmail or postfix 
(better)).

Postfix will then deliver the email to which ever user it is addressed 
to, using procmail. Your ~/.procmailrc file will define which mailbox 
mail is placed in.

As a user you will then connect to the mail server over IMAP and read 
your mails. You might then log out/reboot the machine/switch email 
clients, and continue reading the same messages etc (as it's all server 
side stuff).

Does that explain everything okish?

David.